However one must commend Argento’s bravery in committing himself totally to the irrationality of the horror genre. This irrationality includes a number of striking and downright odd set piece sequences that last far beyond their narrative justification. The two that spring most readily to mind are an encounter with a demonic alchemist in the basement of a Rome library, and an even more astonishing underwater sequence in a flooded hotel ballroom. These phantasmagorical moments are a sophisticated index illustrating the burgeoning global threat of the Three Mothers. This realm of phantasmagoria also represent a clash between modernity and a more mediaeval world of witchcraft and superstition. Alchemy emerges as a major thematic and symbolic motif of the film and one which works at an extra-textual level. After all Argento and his team of technicians are creating a kind of visual alchemy, suggesting the events on screen are a metaphor for the filmmaking experience itself.

Like a good number of Argento, films Inferno can be enjoyed at a visual level, and the graphic violence within (surprisingly more sadistic than normal for an Argento film) provides the requisite thrills for hardcore horror fans, but as a piece of storytelling, Inferno is nothing short of a disaster. Everything serves what I would term the internal illogic of the film…even the soundtrack by Keith Emerson. The music lacks synchronisation, suffers bizarre and awkward tempos, and wildly offbeat time signature. Only during the reveal of the true identity of the mysterious nurse at the films conclusion do we get the type of brilliant music we are accustomed too in Argento’s films. The result is that there is scant opportunity for the audience to take things in and ponder the deeper mysteries of the film, and explore the connections (both character based and narrative based) that were established in Suspiria and concluded so badly in the recent Mother of Tears (a film by the way that makes Inferno look like Citizen Kane!). There is much to admire here, but if you want a single example of where Argento began to lose it as a storyteller and constructor of narratives, this is it.

tIn one deft movement Argento manages to successfully bridge the gap between the trashy and exploitative realm of the giallo and traditions of Italian art cinema. He achieves this partly through his collaboration with Zapponi, but also through the self-conscious decision to cast David Hemmings as avant-garde musician turned amateur sleuth Marcus Daly. This provides an extra-textual link to Michelangelo Antonioni’s existential expose of swinging London Blow Up (1966). The themes of Argento and Antonioni crisscross regularly, and one can see that Argento was as much informed by the art cinema of his native country as he was by Hitchcock or the horror genre in a wider sense. However a key difference is that rather than explore the isolated psyche of the alienated loner contending with the difficulties of modernity (a major preoccupation of much Italian art cinema) Argento subverts this subjectivity to explore the perversity and insanity beneath the pretence of the bourgeois art world. In Deep Red artistic endeavour is strongly liked to femininity or homosexuality, and through art Argento is articulating a crisis in masculinity. This is played out in a number of witty encounters between Daly and the assertive and liberated journalist Giana Brezzi (played with wide-eyed brilliance by Daria Nicolodi). The most obvious the moment in which she beats Marc in an arm wrestling contest.

Art is being used in a metaphorical fashion, a metaphor for madness, insanity and eventually violent death. This is taken to an extreme when the murderers face and identity is almost submerged into a painting, the identity of the psychopath at one with the nightmarish artwork. Gialli live and die by the success or failure of their set piece death sequences. In Deep Red not only are they exceptional, but they seem to go beyond the narrative and into the realm of the poetic. They become the most artistic element of the film. They include a memorable and chilling sequence involving a mechanical dummy, and perhaps most horrifying of all a death by scalding. This is not an unconventional giallo though, and like most the narrative hinges on a past event that has been repressed – this is superbly hinted at by a prologue sequence that breaks up the opening credits, offering us a murder shot from a peculiarly low angle. This scene becomes the key to the whole film, and it remains a satisfying enigma until the films violent conclusion. One can even put aside the clichéd criticism of Argento’s narrative faults, in Deep Red every aspect of the plot works seamlessly with the story. One or two mistimed comedy moments aside Deep Red emerges as a lucid, artistic, metaphorical, symbolic and visually impressive film that even finds time for a progressive discussion of gender politics.

When brutality against the body is elevated to the level of art, the viewer is put in an uncomfortable position—instead of sympathizing with the victim, we are left admiring the visual presentation of a murder scene. Argento uses our discomfort with brutality and our attraction to the beautiful to create a nightmarish piece of art.

Suspiria has a very simple plot. A young American ballerina named Suzy Bannion arrives in Germany to attend the Freiburg Dance Academy. Her plane arrives late at night during a supernaturally intense downpour. Suzy arrives at the school just in time to see a young woman fleeing the school, mumbling to herself. Susie is not allowed inside and ends up leaving in the downpour. At this point, the camera leaves Suzy and follows the girl fleeing the school. As we follow the ill-fated girl into a strange apartment building with an ornate stained-glass dome, the famous score by the Goblins, a pulsing synthesizer beat of breathing, screaming, whispering, and wheezing, creates an almost unbearable tension.

In these first thirty minutes, it’s clear that Argento’s use of color and music are the real stars of Suspiria—blues and reds saturate the movie, creating a surreal, baroque atmosphere. The film moves in dreamy, sometimes disconnected, vignettes. But plot is not the point here, and it’s no surprise who wins, who loses, and how the movie ends. The script and the acting also aren’t the point—this is not a psychological horror movie, not the kind of film that reveals our latent fears about power, sexuality, pleasure, and pain. The young actresses in this film don’t display any real curiosity about the activities in the school. Unlike more contemporary horror films with all-female leads, such as Gingersnaps and The Descent, female sexuality is not what interests Argento. Argento is interested in aesthetics—color, elegance, and pageantry of the body.

Suspiria is not a movie for a viewer looking to get a political, social, or feminist message from their horror film. The primary point of ambiguity in the film lies in our reaction to the murders as viewers. What does it mean to admire the murder of a beautiful, young woman? In fact, the murders in Suspiria don’t feel like murders at all—the victims are not round characters that we sympathize with or feel any emotion towards, and even our heroine, Suzy, is not particularly interesting (which is perhaps why she is given the blandest of American names). The young women in this film are palates for Argento to create his bloody scenes. And those scenes are of such dream-like, nightmarish beauty, that it would be a shame to miss them because they don’t come with a lesson or message.

The set up takes far longer than it should for how little it matters. This time instead of a movie theater, the action takes place in an apartment building where the tenants are all going about their normal business. A young girl is having dinner with her parents, a young boy is left home alone, an expectant couple talk about their day, a bipolar woman flips out at her birthday party, and a group of muscle men led by Bobby Rhodes (who’s back in a different role) are hitting the weights. Most of these people are connected by the fact that they’re watching what seems to be a bad PBS re-enactment of the events following the first film. They’re glued to the screen as the survivors inadvertently revive one of the demons and are chased down one by one. The unstable birthday girl, who has locked herself in her bedroom, seems to be especially terrified, so perhaps the TV demon sees this as an opportunity when (in one of the best effects shots of the movie) he walks straight through her screen and into the “real” world. The already awkward party quickly goes from bad to worse and the chaos soon spreads throughout the building.

If you remember how the first film played out then you have a good idea of what’s going to happen here. I’m not sure how it’s possible, but the people are even dumber this time around and they’ve doubled the excessive shrieks and screams to keep up with the extra stupidity. The excellent gore is noticeably absent this time around, instead we get longer shots of snarling demons approaching their victims with all of the attacks taking place off camera. How is that a fair trade? I suppose the make-up is an improvement, but it seems like such a waste if you’re not going to do something with it. I found myself almost completely disinterested in the people trying to make it out alive and even more disappointed that their deaths weren’t the least bit gruesome.

It was nice to see the filmmakers had the balls to turn a kid into a demon and into a mean little bastard at that. I really wish they would have gone through with their original plan to have Hannah’s baby turn into a demon and claw it’s way out of her stomach, instead of the happier alternative. That would have helped take it that extra step and given it a little more edge. As it stands, the only thing making this a worthwhile effort are the visuals. The film is filled with stylish set pieces and it has more than enough of Bava’s signature shots with the glowy-eyed creatures walking slowly through the long shadows and mist. Although, there’s not a whole lot that fancy sets and lighting can do for a film that tries to copy its predecessor but forgets to carry over all the cool bits.